H.E. Mr. Ahmad Ali Al-Mohannadi, the Chairman of CPGA, gave a speech during the opening session of the 37^th meeting of the GCC Customs Managers, in which he said:

Your Excellency, the Assistant Secretary General for Economical Affairs, You Excellency, the General Managers of Customs, Ladies and Gentlemen,

I would like to start welcoming you to the 37^th meeting of the GCC Customs General Managers, wishing you good luck in the topics set in the schedule.

Let me express my happiness to be here with you for the first time wishing to contribute with you in the great achievements of the customs union in GCC so far.

You Excellency, I have reviewed some of the most important decisions and recommendations your committee had taken in the previous meetings; and I do appreciate what has been achieved so far, which had a good impact on the unified Customs Law, unified Customs Tariff and Customs Procedures. This is considered as a major feature of the Gulf Joint Work, and it has become a role-model regionally and internationally.

Dear brothers,

The rapid changes of the world made the countries all over the world develop and modernize their customs systems. And there are now many international effective agreements as well as some other ones that are being prepared which all deal with the modern customs systems and procedures. Some of these agreements are concerned with simplifying procedures; others focus on the security aspects. This, of course, will make us do our best to improve our abilities the human, the technological and the legislative ones to cope with these changes, and to play an effective role in these agreements.

So, let us work together to set up developing systems, in the future, which will achieve our goals in an easy and simple manner that also does not affect the safety and security of our countries.

Finally, I would like again to thank the Secretariat General for the good preparation for the works of our committee, wishing success to our meeting.